Regents approve 2008-'09 budget package

The Northwest Missouri State University Board of Regents met in regular session Thursday, June 26, and approved budgets for the 2008-’09 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Annual University spending is divided into the Education and General Budget, which includes salaries and operations, and the Auxiliary Enterprises Budget, which outlines projected income and expenditures for self-sustaining operations such as dining services and student housing.

The Education and General Budget for 2008-’09 totals $74.8 million, up from $68 million last year, with most of the additional revenue coming from a 4 percent increase in state appropriations ($33 million, compared to $31.7 million in fiscal 2007-’08) and a 4.1 percent increase in tuition.

This is the first Northwest budget to contain a tuition increase governed by the terms of a cap enacted last year by the state Legislature, which stipulates that such increases cannot exceed the growth of the consumer price index. Other new income includes higher fees for classroom renovation, wellness services, technology and textbook rental, which were student-approved and so excluded from the cap.

Auxiliary spending by Northwest will increase by a projected 9.3 percent in fiscal 2008-’09, from $20.8 million to $22.7 million, based on increases approved last year in contract rates for food and housing plus a higher anticipated residence hall occupancy rate.

Northwest faculty and staff will receive a 2 percent across-the-board cost-of-living raise beginning July 1. Additional funds have been set aside to bring individual salaries closer to national market-based averages as determined by the College and University Personnel Association.

Northwest’s payroll comprises approximately 720 employees who will collect $31.5 million in wages during 2008-’09, up from the current total of $29.2 million.

In other business, the regents approved submission of “special decision” program requests and capital expenditure requests to the state Coordinating Board for Higher Education. The annual requests are made in order to establish priorities with regard to new programs and facilities should state funding become available. Making a request does not mean a program or project will be funded.

Program requests to the CBHE include $1.2 million in annual funding for faculty and staff needed to support a proposed undergraduate degree program in nanotechnology to be housed in Northwest’s new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. A second request calls for $1.1 million in yearly state funding over 20 years, which would finance an upgrade of the University’s aging alternative energy operation.

Begun in 1982, Northwest’s renewable energy program, which utilizes pelletized wastepaper, cardboard and livestock wastes, has saved Missouri taxpayers more than $10 million in fuel and utility costs. At current price levels for natural gas, which are expected to increase, the University’s continued commitment to alternative energy sources could save the state at least $26 million over the next two decades.

Capital projects requests to the CBHE include $19.5 million for a new classroom building, which would encompass demolition of obsolete campus structures like the aging Thompson-Ringold Building. Other priorities on the capital projects list include, among other facilities, renovation of the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building, Wells Hall and Brown Education Hall.

The regents also approved a recommendation from President Dean L. Hubbard to re-name the Electronic Campus Support Center in honor of Dr. Jon Rickman, vice president for information systems.

Rickman was the lead administrator in the design and deployment in 1987 of Northwest's Electronic Campus, the first such computer network of its kind at a public university. A member of the Northwest faculty since 1976, Rickman has been instrumental in maintaining Northwest’s national reputation for putting the latest information technology into the hands of students.

Most recently, Rickman has overseen the upgrading of Northwest’s laptop program, which provides all full-time students with a fully loaded notebook computer whether or not they live on campus. He also serves as curator of the University’s Jean Jennings Bartik Computing Museum.

For more information, please contact:

Anthony Brown,
News Bureau Manager
E-Mail: abrown@nwmissouri.edu
Phone: 660.562.1704
Fax: 660.562.1900

Northwest Missouri State University
219 Administration Building,
800 University Drive
Maryville, MO 64468

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